Page 37 - Ultimate Guide to Estate Planning
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potentially adversarial position with their
siblings. It’s almost amusing that they’ve never
had this conversation with the attorney that
prepared their initial estate plan. If one child is
selected over another, in the best-case
scenario, the child that's appointed as the
trustee will preserve an existing sibling
relationship, presuming the child doesn’t
charge anything for the significant amount of
work associated with the administration of the
estate and finalization of tax returns. They try
to do the best they can while spending the least
amount of time that they have to spend. That
necessarily may not be the best thing. If the
estate plan provides that one child has to do a
bunch of work and not be paid, will that instill
family unity?
Even if it all works out, the child that you
selected to be the trustee did all the work and
spent a great deal of time seeking to implement
your intent yet didn't get paid to do any of it.
How are they going to feel about that? It doesn't
really promote the family unity that you desire,
it promotes some resentment.
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